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Monday, 28 February 2011

Your Guide to Paint Essentials

Your Guide to Paint Essentials

Paint is your key to colour and debatably the easiest, least expensive and an almost immediate way to transform your home. It can be as uncomplicated as brilliant white, but that would ignore all the other absolutely gorgeous colours. Nevertheless, often it's the vast choice that sometimes presents as a problem - there are just so many types, brands and shades on the market.
You can choose from historical tones for period homes; sleek chalky finishes that perform up to the demands of modern life; or new formulas specifically designed to suit all surfaces. By deeper understanding of the product, you can unleash all the design opportunities of paint that make it such a tempting medium.

Paint Types

Paints with a water base are generally referred to as emulsions or acrylics and were conventionally used only for interior walls and ceilings. However, recent tremendous advances in the paint technology have meant that water-based formulas, especially the superior acrylics, are available for all surfaces, from timber work to metal, and for interior and exterior use. The advantage of these paints over oil-based ones is that they are cleaner, have less odour and are more environmentally sounded. Brushes and rollers can be washed clean with water.

Solvent often referred to as oil-based paints are used where a hard-wearing finish is required for exterior and interior timber, masonry and furniture - although, the new formulations of acrylics and multi-surface paints offers practical alternatives. In general, brushes need to be cleaned with turps or white spirit.

Make-up and Ingredients.

All paints are made of four key ingredients: liquids, binders, pigments and additives. In general, the more pigment used to make the paint, the better the quality it will be: a ratio of 30% to 45% pigments and binder and by volume indicates a paint that will be hard wearing and provide good coverage and enduring colour. Think about the following when you are faced with an aisle of paint pots and are struggling with what to buy.